PayPal – this is what You are supporting

First of all, thank you for dropping Tommy Robinson as a customer! We are happy to see that breaking the user agreement has consequences. That is actually the reason we are writing You today.

In Sweden, the alt right is comparably strong and vital, and is getting stronger. We also saw during the weeks coming up to our election in September that racist junk news sites had a huge reach, much bigger than traditional media. This is a big concern for us as an organisation working for democracy and against racism, but also a big concern for Sweden as a country. The spread of misinformation and racist ideas makes our democracy weaker, and has to be stopped.

Regarding that, we have unfortunate news for You, PayPal. Many of the organisations and junk news sites are funded with the help of Your services. Fortunately, Skiftet has done some research, and these organisations and junk news sites are using PayPal for funding:

Nordisk Ungdom: The organisation is the youth division of the organisation Skandinaviska förbundet. Nordisk Ungdom is racist and homophobic. In September twelve of its members were convicted in court for an action against the Pride festival in Stockholm in 2017. In 2017, members of Nordisk Ungdom violently disturbed a manifestation by young asylum seekers. One person was prosecuted for throwing a bengal at people taking part in the manifestation. These are just examples of Nordisk Ungdoms violent actions.

Skandinavisk Frihet: Connected to Nordisk Ungdom is the racist junk news site Skandinavisk frihet, who also uses PayPal.

Motpol: Motpol is an alt right think tank. Its founder is Daniel Friberg. He has close ties to Richard Spencer and thinks that the politicians that has been in charge of immigration in Sweden the last years has committed such great crimes that capital punishment should be considered for them.

Nya dagbladet: Nya dagbladet is a junk news site that has a campaign for “ethnic rights”. They believe it is a “fundamental human right” to be allowed to “preserve one’s cultural and ethnic background”, both on an “individual and collective level”.

Samhällsnytt: Samhällsnytt is a junk news site that used to be called Avpixlat, a right extremist and racist hate site. It has amongst the biggest reaches on social media of any Swedish news outlets and is a spreader of misinformation and fake news. During the weeks leading up to the Swedish election in September, Samhällsnytt was one of the three most shared junk news sites on Twitter.

We at Skiftet hope that You at PayPal will look into these organisations and news sites and see that they are violating the user agreement in spreading hate, violence and discrimination.